ASA(P)							     POSIX Programmer's Manual							    ASA(P)

NAME

       asa - interpret carriage-control characters

SYNOPSIS

       asa [ file ... ]

DESCRIPTION

       The  asa  utility  shall  write its input files to standard output, mapping carriage-control characters from the text files to line-printer
       control sequences in an implementation-defined manner.

       The first character of every line shall be removed from the input, and the following actions are performed.

       If the character removed is:

       <space>
	      The rest of the line is output without change.

       0      A <newline> is output, then the rest of the input line.

       1      One or more implementation-defined characters that causes an advance to the next page shall be output, followed by the rest  of  the
	      input line.

       +      The  <newline>  of  the  previous  line shall be replaced with one or more implementation-defined characters that causes printing to
	      return to column position 1, followed by the rest of the input line. If the '+' is the first character in the  input,  it  shall	be
	      equivalent to <space>.

       The  action  of	the  asa  utility is unspecified upon encountering any character other than those listed above as the first character in a
       line.

OPTIONS

       None.

OPERANDS

       file   A pathname of a text file used for input. If no file operands are specified, the standard input shall be used.

STDIN

       The standard input shall be used only if no file operands are specified; see the INPUT FILES section.

INPUT FILES

       The input files shall be text files.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of asa:

       LANG   Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that  are	unset  or  null.  (See	the  Base  Definitions	volume	of
	      IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,  Section  8.2,  Internationalization  Variables  for  the precedence of internationalization variables used to
	      determine the values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE
	      Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to
	      multi-byte characters in arguments and input files).

       LC_MESSAGES
	      Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.

       NLSPATH
	      Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES .

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

       Default.

STDOUT

       The standard output shall be the text from the input file modified as described in the DESCRIPTION section.

STDERR

       None.

OUTPUT FILES

       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

       None.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values shall be returned:

	0     All input files were output successfully.

       >0     An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

       None.

EXAMPLES

	1. The following command:

	   asa file

       permits the viewing of file (created by a program using FORTRAN-style carriage-control characters) on a terminal.

	2. The following command:

	   a.out | asa | lp

       formats the FORTRAN output of a.out and directs it to the printer.

RATIONALE

       The asa utility is needed to map "standard" FORTRAN 77 output into a form acceptable to contemporary printers. Usually, asa is used to pipe
       data to the lp utility; see lp.

       This utility is generally used only by FORTRAN programs. The standard developers decided to retain asa to  avoid  breaking  the	historical
       large base of FORTRAN applications that put carriage-control characters in their output files. There is no requirement that a system have a
       FORTRAN compiler in order to run applications that need asa.

       Historical implementations have used an ASCII <form-feed> in response to a 1 and an ASCII <carriage-return> in response to a '+'  .  It	is
       suggested  that	implementations  treat characters other than 0, 1, and '+' as <space> in the absence of any compelling reason to do other-
       wise. However, the action is listed here as "unspecified", permitting an implementation to provide extensions to access fast  multiple-line
       slewing and channel seeking in a non-portable manner.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       fort77 , lp

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technol-
       ogy -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of
       Electrical  and	Electronics  Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE
       and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can  be  obtained
       online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

IEEE
/The Open Group						       2003								    ASA(P)